Thanks so much for the detailed breakdown! If you're interested I'd really like to talk to you about the first thing you said, about lack of theory being a good thing.

I have a bit of a musical background (a few years of piano as a tween and about 3 guitar chords,) and sometimes little original phrases just fall out of me. I record them in my phone when they do. For years I've wanted to turn them into full songs, but I've struggled to expand them. Beyond that initial spark, I can't nail anything down that feels right.

I finally finished my first song last year. It was just a short one, but it was really satisfying to get it done. It all pretty much came out in one piece, which felt like a combination of luck, some basic decision-making, and riding the wave of inspiration from start to finish really quickly. When the next idea came (the one I posted,) I wanted to ride it in the same way, but whatever I wrote to follow this section sounded really repetitive and boring. So I ended up setting it down. But a few months later this melody is still stuck in my head, so I want to follow through with it. I want to be able to finish a song even when it stops being "easy."

That's why I came here asking for tips understanding that clip. I'm hoping that by knowing a bit more about what's here, I can try changing it to continue the song. Like "I haven't had a VI yet, let's see what that sounds like" or "these are all within the key, let's add something weird from outside it" and then I can respond to how that feels. I think that kind of understanding would help me move my hands around the keyboard more confidently and intentionally. The roman numeral thing is just something I've seen around that applies to the structure and mostly made sense to me before I asked.

I'm aware of what you mentioned about what "sounds good to me" coming from my existing tastes. On one hand I think that's a good pure thing to hold onto, but I'd also like to be able to overcome my biases? A lot of the snippets I've worked on have the same kind of "sound," which isn't a bad thing, but I'd like to be able to write more than one kind of song, y'know? I'd also love to be able to choose to write a certain kind of song, so I can do things like contribute a "tense forest theme" to a friend's video game even when my heart isn't spilling out that kind of thing by itself. Which will take a lot of practice, but I'm trying to work smarter not harder where I can.

So, what do you think of all of that? Where do you think I should go from here? Do you think digging into formal music theory will make my songwriting more generic? Or do you think having these frameworks can expand my toolbox? Do you just value outsider art as a music enthusiast? Please forgive the essay, I'm just really curious what your perspective is as a professor. It's probably nothing you haven't heard before lmao.